4 ms·

Perhaps allowing preorders for a day or two might have helped spread the load? Or at least moved it earlier so that the checkout load didn't overlap with the lo

Perhaps allowing preorders for a day or two might have helped spread the load? Or at least moved it earlier so that the checkout load didn't overlap with the load from users downloading.

adamesque 1y ago
Very surprised they didn’t do preorders for this
- WithinReason 1y ago
  They get extra publicity for crashing Steam. That's quite an achievement these days!
rozab 1y ago
I was thinking about this for the recent GMTK game jam, which crashed itch.io. Is it really such a bad thing for your launch/event to crash a platform? Nobody is going to decide not to buy Silksong after all because it's so wildly popular it brought down Steam. It generates a great deal of positive headlines. To me it seems like a good problem to have.
jijikuya 1y ago
1. That's Valve's prerogative, not the developer's. If they're not partnered with Valve they may not have had the option to enact pre-purchases. [1] 2. The game has no DRM and Steam preorders (in my experience) download the game files so people can play instantly on launch day. (They call it 'preloading'). For a game as highly anticipated as this, it'd likely just be cracked, leaked and pirated the moment preorders came live. [1]: https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/store/prepurchase https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/store/prepurchase
- rbits 1y ago
  They could've enabled pre-orders on Nintendo and Xbox
- NobodyNada 1y ago
  #2 seems like a technically solvable problem: AES-encrypt the preload and distribute the key on launch day.
  - 0cf8612b2e1e 1y ago
    I thought they already did something like this. I recall some people complaining because the naive decryption process would double the required hard drive space while the bundle was unpacking on release day.
    - jandrese 1y ago
      There is no need for the decryption to double the needed size. You can chunk it to something reasonable and effectively rewrite the file in place.
    - Hamuko 1y ago
      Pretty sure they already do it. I've also noticed that if you have a fast connection (like 1 Gb/s down), it might be faster to download the game when it releases than it is to preload it and then decrypt it, since the decryption process is quite slow.
    - semiquaver 1y ago
      Of course they do. GGP has no idea what they are talking about.
- brandon 1y ago
  You don't believe Team Cherry's prior sales of Hollow Knight would reach the bar noted in the docs you linked? Aside, your second point is incorrect. The SteamDB folks have a public write up on analysis of the preload system: https://steamdb.info/blog/steam-download-system/ https://steamdb.info/blog/steam-download-system/

Perhaps allowing preorders for a day or two might have helped spread the load? Or at least moved it earlier so that the checkout load didn't overlap with the load from users downloading.

adamesque 1y ago

Very surprised they didn’t do preorders for this

WithinReason 1y ago
They get extra publicity for crashing Steam. That's quite an achievement these days!

rozab 1y ago

I was thinking about this for the recent GMTK game jam, which crashed itch.io. Is it really such a bad thing for your launch/event to crash a platform? Nobody is going to decide not to buy Silksong after all because it's so wildly popular it brought down Steam. It generates a great deal of positive headlines. To me it seems like a good problem to have.

jijikuya 1y ago

1. That's Valve's prerogative, not the developer's. If they're not partnered with Valve they may not have had the option to enact pre-purchases. [1] 2. The game has no DRM and Steam preorders (in my experience) download the game files so people can play instantly on launch day. (They call it 'preloading'). For a game as highly anticipated as this, it'd likely just be cracked, leaked and pirated the moment preorders came live. [1]: https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/store/prepurchase https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/store/prepurchase

rbits 1y ago
They could've enabled pre-orders on Nintendo and Xbox
NobodyNada 1y ago
#2 seems like a technically solvable problem: AES-encrypt the preload and distribute the key on launch day.
- 0cf8612b2e1e 1y ago
  I thought they already did something like this. I recall some people complaining because the naive decryption process would double the required hard drive space while the bundle was unpacking on release day.
  - jandrese 1y ago
    There is no need for the decryption to double the needed size. You can chunk it to something reasonable and effectively rewrite the file in place.
  - Hamuko 1y ago
    Pretty sure they already do it. I've also noticed that if you have a fast connection (like 1 Gb/s down), it might be faster to download the game when it releases than it is to preload it and then decrypt it, since the decryption process is quite slow.
  - semiquaver 1y ago
    Of course they do. GGP has no idea what they are talking about.
brandon 1y ago
You don't believe Team Cherry's prior sales of Hollow Knight would reach the bar noted in the docs you linked? Aside, your second point is incorrect. The SteamDB folks have a public write up on analysis of the preload system: https://steamdb.info/blog/steam-download-system/ https://steamdb.info/blog/steam-download-system/